Meet the Team

Liz Skinner – Director Ms. Skinner joins Beaver Country Day School with a mission to create safe environments for young people to realize their full potential. She has a platform to do this in her first year as the Director of the Hiatt Center and in her 7th year as the Head Varsity Lacrosse Coach. Prior to Beaver, she evaluated youth programs at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston and dedicated a year of service through the Massachusetts Promise Fellowship, an AmeriCorps program that delivers key resources to young people. She looks forward to building mutually beneficial, sustainable partnerships between Beaver and the greater community to deepen student learning and promote a socially just world. Ms. Skinner is originally from Central New York where she studied government and sociology at St. Lawrence University. She is currently pursuing a Master’s of Science in Nonprofit Management from Northeastern University.

Michelle Wildes – Assistant Director Ms. Wildes grew up in Chicago and returned there in 1994 after attending college at University of New Hampshire to develop Shedd Aquarium’s mentorship program which offered academic and leadership programs for teens. These programs provided young people professional job skills training, leadership opportunities, and fostered internship opportunities for students with aquarium professionals from exhibit designers to veterinarians to dolphin trainers. She spent 8 summers taking high schoolers to live aboard a research vessel in the Bahamas to snorkel among the Caribbean fishes and immerse themselves in in Bahamian culture. These rich and diverse experiences with teens cemented her desire for providing students a deeper awareness of life beyond classroom walls. After completing a MS degree from Northeastern University in 2003, Ms. Wildes joined Beaver as a middle school science teacher. In her 10 years teaching at Beaver, she brought her passion for ocean science and water conservation to the curriculum as well as a meaningful connection to how it relates to the world we live in. The community involvement, immersion experiences, and civic responsibility she and her students explored together led her to making a shift into work at the Hiatt Center for Civic Engagement and Leadership in 2014. Ms. Wildes resides in Roslindale with her husband and 2 school aged daughters.

OUR MISSION

To connect Beaver students to the global society through mutually beneficial partnerships that deepen learning and inspired individuals to rethink their place in the world.